


Chrysanthemum

by CrimsonRoseAlchemist



Series: YOI One-Word Prompts [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Abuse, Beating, Character Study, Character's Name Spelled as Viktor, Child Abuse, Childhood, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Flashbacks, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, One Shot, One Word Prompts, POV First Person, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Physical Abuse, Recovery, Short, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 16:51:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14000448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimsonRoseAlchemist/pseuds/CrimsonRoseAlchemist
Summary: One word prompt: ChrysanthemumI was a rainbow of colors, of marks with sharp little petals reaching out to the next, like a daisy chain.





	Chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemums dotted my arms and my legs. Some large, some small, Some pink, some red, some blue and purple. Some had faded into green, others into a pink-white scar. I was a rainbow of colors, of marks with sharp little petals reaching out to the next, like a daisy chain.

They bloomed each day of the year, each week and each month. Long sleeves and long pants kept them hidden, even in the heat of summer. It wasn’t until my chrysanthemums were discovered that I was set free- but first, I was imprisoned. How does one appreciate being free if they have never known the feeling of imprisonment?

They laid me down, bare and I shivering, hands grasping at the places I didn’t want them to see. But my wrists were pried from and I was naked once more, eyes wild as they counted each chrysanthemum. There were forty-three.

The last ones were still fading by the time I was released, and the gardener was gone when they took me to pack up my things. The house was cold, lifeless- I didn’t want to be there. As I picked up a faded cat plushie from the floor, the sleeve of my jacket rode up. The corner of a green petal peeked out, and my lip trembled. What was going to happen to me now?

“Yuratchka!” 

The man who embraced me smelled of cigars and after shave, his woolen coat itchy against my windburnt cheek. He held me tightly, though I tried to wiggle from his grasp. I stared up at him when he placed me down, heading tilting as I tried to decipher who he was.

“What’s wrong, my Yuratchka?” He knelt down to my level, placing his leather-gloved hand over my cheek. “Don’t you remember your grandpa?”

Tears filled my eyes, the strangers in the room suddenly suffocating me. The gardener hadn’t been home when I’d gotten my things; where did she go? What did they do to her?

“Where is my m-mama?” I sobbed, the cat plushie slipping from my fingers and dropping onto the floor, her glass eye hitting the tile with a clink that rang in my ears for eons after.

My grandfather frowned, thumbing at my tears with the rough leather. “She’s gone away, my boy. She isn’t going to hurt you anymore.”

“But how will she plant the garden?”

My Dedushka furrowed his brow, lower lip catching between his teeth as I pulled up my sleeves, revealing white-pink flowers and a few faded greens, barely visible to the eye. Tears hit the tiled floor in tiny droplets, though I didn’t understand how I had made a stranger cry. Even though it had hurt, I somehow missed it once it was gone.

_“If you’re a good boy, we won’t have to plant any flowers tomorrow.”_

The words stayed with me long after I stopped hearing them. For ages, I expected my grandfather to give me the same treatment. I flinched when he would touch me, shrunk away from all affections. Finally, he stopped trying to hug me, or brush away fallen tears. He would simply hold my hand, giving me some control of the action in the process. He wasn’t going to hurt me.

The red ones and pink ones came from her lit cigarettes, stubbed out on my pale skin. Embers sliding in all directions, making the pointed petals fan out. They faded into star-like scars, pink and white against alabaster skin. 

_“You weren’t good, Yuri. No, no. You weren’t very good today.”_

_My chest would coil up as the orange glow grew closer, body trembling. Her cold hand would grasp my wrist, and I could never pull away no matter how hard I tried. Wherever the stick was stubbed out would seer, tears brimming over and heating my cheeks as the burn seeped into my tender skin._

_“If you had been good, Yuri, we wouldn’t have planted any flowers.”_

The blues and purples hurt just as bad- gemstone rings on her fingers leaving bruises where they hit from a balled fist or the back of her hand. A diamond, her engagement ring to the father I never met. A red gem, followed by a pink one- both gifts from him. Her hand was my father, the marks a gift from him to me.

_“M-mama, no, please!”_

_“Are you disobeying me, Yuri? Talking back?”_

_Tears would begin to leak, hands clenched as I waited for her to strike. “N-no, no, mama.”_

_“I think you were.”_

_The first strike hurt the most, the sudden impact always making me cry out. No matter how hard I sobbed or how much I begged, the sharp rings would dig into my skin as her fist found my arms, legs, torso._

_“Mama, p-please! The rings hurt! The rings hurt!”_

_“Your father gave me these rings, you ingrate! Do not disrespect your father or his gifts!”_

By the time I went to St. Petersburg, all but one chrysanthemum had faded from my skin. Years of healing and tubes of scar cream had done my body well. I had almost forgotten about the garden on my skin, until Viktor’s gentle finger brushed my arm in the locker room one day.

“What happened, Yura?” He asked, tucking a lock of long hair behind his ear.

I stared at the white flower, his finger slowly drifting away from it as I opened my mouth to speak. It all came flooding back at once, but I held it back from him with a cold stare- the eyes of a soldier.

“My mother used to garden,” I told him, pulling my sweatshirt over my head. “Her favorite flowers were chrysanthemums.”

I heard a confused whisper as I closed my locker door, moving past him as he muttered unintelligibly to himself. I took solace, deciding at that moment that I wasn’t ever going to tell anyone about the garden she planted on my skin. It was over, and I would become stronger. I never saw a chrysanthemum again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for your help and edits, Sheep!


End file.
